There is no need, indeed, of going further than General Jackson's letter to Dr. Coleman, for all that is necessary to illustrate this point. If agriculture, or any other pursuit, ceases to be remunerative, in consequence of surplus production, "Common sense," says General Jackson," at once points out the remedy." Diminish the number engaged in it, by turning a part of them to pursuits not overstocked with laborers, that each party may become consumers, directly or indirectly, of the products of the other; and the greater the diversity of productive pursuits, in any community, so much greater its prosperity and common stock of productive wealth.

The European market for an American product, agricultural or other, that has a rival there, presents a distinct question in political economy, which can never be separated from a consideration of the wages of labor in that quarter, as compared with American wages; and that American statesman, who proposes to find a market in Europe, in England or on the Continent, to any considerable extent, for American products of any kind, encountering competition there, proposes what no power can accomplish, with a satisfactory remuneration to, and without impairing the rights of, American labor. For all such products, the true policy of the American people and Government is, to create a market at home, which shall adequately remunerate the labor of the country. Whenever there is a surplus production, a supply above demand, in a given pursuit, "common sense," as General Jackson said," at once points out the remedy." Withdraw, diversify, distribute labor from that point, and make it bear on others not crowded. But Mr. Secretary Walker proposes to crowd that pursuit still more, if it happens to be agriculture; to turn the nation into it, and force the world to let us supply all their wants; to let us "feed the hungry, and clothe the poor of our fellow-men throughout all the densely peopled nations of the world!" This, surely is a magnificent scheme, magniloquently propounded, considering that it appears in a financial document! But, if there is common sense in it, there was little, and none to spare, in the man, whose name this honorable Secretary once professed, and would doubtless now be thought, to honor.

But one of Mr. Walker's reasons for the policy he proposes is, that "foreign nations cannot, for a series of years, im

port more than they export." This was very safely, very prudently, very sagely said. It will, doubtless, be" a series of years" before they will feel able to afford it. But since we can afford to import some forty, or fifty, or sixty millions a year more than we export-that appears to be the plan of the Secretary, and the scope and bearing of the tariff of 1846

- we shall then be able to take the field, get ahead of all other nations, and "feed the hungry and clothe the poor of all the densely peopled nations of the world!" The apparent simplicity and gravity with which the Secretary announces the axiom, that "foreign nations cannot, for a series of years, import more than they export," brings one to a pause as to what could have been the state of his mind-whether he was really dreaming that we could afford it now, and that other nations, "after a series of years," would follow our example!

It cannot be denied, that Mr. Walker is candid in disclosing two objects, which he appears to have had in view, viz., to raise the price of cotton, by lowering that of other agricultural products. It is believed he made a mistake, as to the effect of his plan on cotton; but let that go. He evidently foresees that the effect of his plan will greatly reduce the prices of American agricultural products, other than cotton, and assumes it. He says, “we can raise a larger surplus of agricultural products, and a greater variety, than almost any ather nation; and at cheaper rates." It was impossible, in the nature of things, that his plan should go into operation, without bringing down the wages of American labor to the European standard, when the essence of his plan was to bring its products, without restriction on either side, into direct and open competition in the same markets. He, therefore, proposes to put the whole nation to agriculture, to make up in surplus production, what may, in consequence, be wanting in price! The greater the surplus, of course, the greater the reduction of price. But, it being assumed that we can "sell at cheaper rates than almost any other nation," it is also assumed, that we can drive them all from the field, and have the market of the world! This appears to be the Secretary's plan; and it is absolutely neces sary it should succeed, to rescue it from the imputation of the greatest folly that was ever conceived by man, however it may fail to save the people from the greatest disasters that ever befel a nation.

MORE than two thousand years ago, Plato delivered an opinion* on the intellectual character of woman, which, as the voice of the wisest of men, should have settled forever the doctrine, that knowledge is the province of her soul— an opinion which should have been honored by the establishment of the most generous institutions for her education. It agrees with Wordsworth's grand description of the human race, taking it, Plato granted to be in the right, for as accurate an account of woman as of man. "For see the Universal Race endowed

Foretasted, immortality presumed."

It is strange that this opinion of Plato, so entirely in conformity with the Greek mythology, that places a Pallas, Ceres, and the Muses by the side of Venus and Diana, should never have fallen upon ion of the chief thinker of the world, relathe "ears of profiting"-this liberal opintive to that important problem, the education of woman, which, though occa

fixed,

66

never been properly elevated, and has as yet attained no firm foundation. Miss Edgeworth's Letters for Literary Ladies," written forty or fifty years ago, testified the indifference and ignorance prevailing at that time, as to this point, a change for the worse from the days of Elizabeth. And Sidney Smith's fine essay on this subject, in the Edinburgh Review of 1815, the principal ornament of his collected works, shows the con

tinued darkness of the times; yet chief men were ready to receive these liberal doctrines; such a man as Mackintosh, who, first reading this novel discussion in India, says in his journal: "I was de

attending the present limited schools. As to the expense of preparation, perhaps, on reflection, legislators may be induced to admit girls into the grammar schools. Patriots must at length make discoveries on this subject.

If there had been no convents to lay up the great classics, no revival of lettersif all scientific and literary associations were suppressed, colleges demolished, academies reduced in their requirements, athenæums sold, all men of liberal education banished, culture forgotten, not unfrequently considered derogatory, and therefore, where existing, carefully concealed-if the idea of education had shrunk to the capacity of writing a decent note, at most, holding a very limited conversation in French-the condition of men relative to all these advantages, would resemble that of women. Society, that depends for its elevation so much on the character of woman, would suffer greater privations than the present, were it not for her constant personal impulse to instruction. Language masters find numerous lady-pupils, lyceums are thronged by bonnets. But whether a lady studies a language or any other branch, depends far too much on accident, on the chance of a master coming into the neighborhood, or the impulse of some crony or rival. But these personal efforts, whether with or without the aid of a master, though they cannot supply the place of a methodical, liberal, accurate plan of education, are now the bounden duty of woman. They will rouse desires for improved means, and the desire will finally produce results. Arnold is wise on the subject of solitary studies. He says, "There is very apt to grow around a lonely reader, not constantly questioned, a haze of indistinctness as to a consciousness of his own knowledge or ignorance, he takes a vague impression for a definite one, an imperfect notion for one that is full and complete." As soon as their place is supplied let them be dropped. In self education, the scheme is often very deficient, and the parts not richly completed, as by the aid of an accomplished teacher. It is good to combine the ardor of self-teaching with the aid of an able instructor. Self instruction is not likely to be undertaken early Hear again the wisdom of Arnold on early aids. "It is so hard to begin anything in after life, and so comparatively easy to continue what has been begun, that I think we are bound to break ground, as it were, into

several of the mines of knowledge, with our pupils, that the first difficulties may be overcome by them while there is yet a power from without to aid their own faltering resolution, and that so they may be enabled, if they will, to go on with the study hereafter."

The experienced Arnold despaired of effecting anything for the education of women without better provision than the present, (we, however, value the smallest quantity of the precious commodity,) not that primary and secondary plans of instruction for girls are wanting in England, but like us, they are destitute of those ultimate seats of instruction so indispensable to give excitement, direction, and stability to their education. One of Arnold's daughters was his pupil thrice a week in Delectus, her older sister three times a week in Virgil, and once in the Greek Testament. This he relates in 1833. In 1841, he writes to his friend Coleridge, "I feel quite as you do the extreme difficulty of giving to girls what really deserves the name of education intellectually. When

was young, I used to teach her some Latin with her brothers, and that has been, I think, of real use to her, and she feels it now in reading and translating German, which she does a great deal. But there is nothing for girls like the Degree of Examination, which concentrates one's reading so beautifully, and makes one master of a certain number of books perfectly. And unless we had a domestic examination for young ladies, to be passed before they came out, and another, like the great go, before they came of age, I do not see how the thing can ever be effected. Seriously, I do not see how we can supply sufficient encouragement for systematic and laborious reading, or how we can insure many things being retained once fully in the mind, when we are wholly without the machinery which we have for our boys."

Had another noble Harvard, two hundred years ago, given half his estate, a general Court bestowed another blessed £400 on a seminary of equal rank with Harvard College, for the instruction of girls, leaving the grammar schools of preparation open to youth of both sexes, and these wise and magnanimous measures been followed up with the generosity which has endowed the University of Cambridge with $700,000; and in such an institution, had six thousand young women been educated with the same care as the six thousand alumni of that insti

tution; could any one doubt the invalu able influence of these thousands of educated mothers on the progress of society? Such a project, at that time, would have been by no means surprising. The period was not far past the reign of Henry VIII., who gave his daughters a learned education as well as his sons. The sons of the learned mothers of the Elizabethan age were still living. Bacon, the son and nephew of the celebrated daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, had just died. These noble sisters, Lady Bacon, Lady Burleigh, Lady Russell, Lady Killegrew, with Mrs. Roper, the deceased daughter of Sir Thomas More, Lady Jane Gray, Queen Elizabeth,† and many cotemporary ladies of rank, were versed in Latin and Greek, as well as other branches of knowledge.

Those who believe with a faith that stirs the heart, the human soul, whether in the breast of man or woman, immortal, must desire its unlimited development, must feel as Dr. Channing did when he wrote, "Far from regarding him (Milton) as standing alone and unapproach able, we believe that he is an illustration of what all who are true to their nature

will become, in the progress of their being, and we have held him forth, not to excite an ineffectual admiration, but to stir up our own and others' breasts to an exhilarating pursuit of higher and evergrowing attainments in intellect and virtue." We would see ample provision for the development of the intellectual principle, wherever it lies.

Few girls, at the close of the most enlarged school education now given, could take rank with the youngest fitly prepared freshman in Latin; Greek, they seldom know at all. In geography, many might sustain a good examination, and a few might vie with the stripling freshman in the knowledge of arithmetic, algebra and geometry; its men are deterred from what is reputed unmanly, so are women, from cultivating tastes mistakenly deemed unfeminine. But why should woman be refused Xenophon, Herodotus, and Homer? why that most excellent whetstone of the wits, the full study of the finest of all languages? why remain a stranger, in their own accents, to the generous and sublime Prometheus of Eschylus, the heroic tenderness of Sophocles' Antigone? why should not

FAERY QUEEN, B. i. C. 6.